


By Hook or By Crook

by fourteenlines



Category: Farscape
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:07:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22253155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourteenlines/pseuds/fourteenlines
Summary: Noranti does not see the future, but she sees other things.
Kudos: 2





	By Hook or By Crook

**Author's Note:**

> Farscape Ficathon entry, written for eve11. She requested Noranti with a side of Stark, Rygel or Pilot, post-Bad Timing. Noranti has always been quite opaque to me; I don't know that she's any less so now. She wouldn't give up many of her secrets. Hopefully that works for the story rather than against it.
> 
> Thanks go to Sab and Anna for beta; the story was saved from the curse of a lame title at the last minute, and I'm still not convinced this one works.
> 
> Originally posted circa 2004.

She was young once, and beautiful besides. Her hair, golden and shimmering and very fine, flowed over her back and down to her waist, and young men used to send her flirtatious glances and tokens of their admiration. Her three eyes used to glitter with amusement and joy, meeting others of their kind and configuration. Her skin was once as smooth and pale as the Peacekeeper's, stretching out over her delicate bones and flushing with pleasure or embarrassment as the need arose.

But that was a very long time ago, when the universe itself was young. Time flowed onward, the universe split and vomited all over itself, and she grew older, always older and more wise. Along with her beauty, other parts of her began to die, things like shame, disgust, moral hypocrisy. In the mulch left behind by these decaying parts, alternate tools grew in their places.

She does not see the future. That is not what her third eye sees. Noranti leaves prognostication to witches and little Nebari girls and races even older than she. Instead, she sees necessities, lies, cause and effect. She has lived innumerable lifetimes of a lesser species and there are precious few secrets the universe still keeps from her.

The others, they were shocked by the swift, unexpected ease with which an unknown alien race tore apart their friends. They are still young and foolish enough to believe in entitlement, in happiness well-deserved.

She does not tell them that she could put Crichton and Aeryn together again. D'Argo, in his rage and his grief, gathered all of the pieces, made sure none were missing, held his breath and dove beneath the waters to satisfy his own misplaced guilt.

The others try to use whatever methods available to reassemble them. Scorpius, having heard the news because news of Crichton travels fast, arrives in his inimitable fashion to offer his own solutions to the problem. None of them work. It troubles Scorpius to know that science is not always as useful as he would like to believe.

Noranti can see how it would work, and she can tell that, though the others have tried to sort out which are Crichton's bits and which are Aeryn's, they are still hopelessly mixed.

She does not speak her thoughts to the others, because the don't ask, and because she isn't sure how well they would re-form. There are worse things than oblivion, worse things than death. Like coming back diminished. Damaged. Less.

Noranti is not what anyone would call good, and she is not necessarily kind, but she would not condemn them to that fate. The universe, contrary to popular opinion, will survive without them.

She is old now. Impossibly old, and she has had time to get used to the idea of death, and states in between. The Dominar thinks he is a respectable age, august in his insufficiently-reclaimed finery. When she was his age, she was yet a child. There are gods and goddesses worshipped in outlying systems that are younger than she.

The sound of Rygel's thronesled trumpets his arrival in her apothecary. Remedies are but one vocation she has learned in her lifetime; remedies for the body and for the soul. She knows Crichton stopped using the laka she gave him, and such a pity; if he had been clearer-headed, he may not have been out on that boat in the first place.

The Dominar comes to a whirring halt beside her. The bits comprising Crichton and Aeryn are now in her custody. "I suppose if there was anything you could do for them, you'd be done by now," he says gruffly. He likes to pretend his dignity is wounded by talking with her, but he is nearly as incapable of embarrassment as she.

"Oh, they're not beyond hope entirely. It's not a matter of ability," she says tartly. "I suppose you could call it a matter of willingness."

"You old bitch, what are you talking about?"

She pauses. Crichton is dangerous, but she came to believe she could rely on his goodness to hold it in check. "I have no idea if I would put them back together right."

The Dominar is brought up short by that idea. He hesitates a moment before speaking. "You mean they might end up with a head or an arm attached to their belly?" He sounds faintly intrigued by the idea. It probably appeals to his sense of the gruesome.

Noranti sighs. "They might end up with their brains scrambled around and no way of getting them back," she says. And that would be the worst kind of insult, wouldn't it? A brilliant creature like Crichton reduced to drooling and being spoon-fed soft stew; a calculating woman like Aeryn staring blankly ahead, gazing into nothing.

No sense of justice or mercy, nothing to hold Crichton in check except for the protection of his friends. There is, of course, always a way of putting thoughts back in the right order, but it depends on being willing to sacrifice the owner of the brain. And there are plenty of creatures in the universe willing to do that. She would commit to watching them her whole life long if need be, but the best option would be to have them safe and secure, forever in her charge.

Rygel snorts softly. She thinks he probably misses them, because he does not see them clearly. No one else does; they are all too caught up in their own agendas.

"I don't see how it would make much of a difference in Crichton," Rygel says, the gruff note back in his voice. "He hasn't been right in the head since Scorpius got hold of him."

"Ah, yes. Scorpius." Scorpius, a marvel of a man. He'd been briefly intrigued by her presence in his own prison; mainly, she thought, because she was now as unique as he. But he was too obsessed by his wormholes to see what she really was. And it was best to keep it that way, so long as his wormhole research never produced anything of value.

There were other commanders who had been more astute, and who had gotten more from her. Not that it did them any good in their brief lives.

"You," she says, remembering, "were on the Zelbinion for a time, weren't you?"

The Dominar glares at her. "Yes."

She nods.

He waits. "Well?"

"Oh, were you expecting something else?"

He grunts, frustrated. "Of course I was on the Zelbinion. It is widely known that I, Dominar Rygel XVI of Hyneria, was held prisoner on the Zelbinion for over 300 cycles." He narrows his eyes at her. She can see he is just remembering that she spent time in Peacekeeper custody. "Why? How long did *you* spend on the Zelbinion?"

She turns from him, pulling bottles from her shelves. She sifts her hands briefly through the box containing the strangely smooth and dry parts that were once Crichton and Aeryn. He is shrewder than she thought.

"Longer than you can even imagine," she finally replies.

"Knew Durka, did you?"

"No. I don't claim to have known Durka. That was after my time."

No one has ever asked her why she was in Peacekeeper custody. Most of them, after all, were unjustly imprisoned. The Dominar, however, seems to think of it now. "Who are you really, Old Woman, and where did you come from?" he asks sharply.

Noranti looks Rygel in the eyes, offers him a knowing smile. "That's a story longer than you have time to hear." With a lightning motion, she blows a puff of herbs in his face. He coughs, and immediately begins to forget.


End file.
